Shutdown: Cash-strapped federal workers selling items to pay bills

By Taylor Telford

January 11, 2019 — 11.14am

Washington: A federal worker in Morgantown, West Virginia, took to Facebook this week to sell welding tools, left behind by his deceased father-in-law. Another, a die-hard Star Wars fan in Woodbridge, Virginia, did the same with a life-size replica of Kylo Ren's lightsaber.

Demonstrators rally against a partial government shutdown at a protest hosted by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association on Capitol Hill in Washington.Credit:Bloomberg

A single father in Indiana hosted a sale on eBay with five pages of things found around the house, including Bibles, Nintendo bedsheets and Dr Seuss neckties.

"Sells for $93.88 at Walmart. Asking $10," a government worker wrote on consumer advertising site Craigslist for a Lulu Ladybug rocking chair. "We need money to pay bills."

As hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for their first missed pay-packets of the government shutdown this week, many have become immersed in the frantic financial calculus of choosing what they can live without.

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In the United States, living pay-packet to pay-packet is disturbingly common, regardless of profession or location.

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A recent report from the Federal Reserve revealed how little cushion most Americans have in their budgets: Four in 10 adults say they couldn't produce $US400 in an emergency without sliding into debt or selling something, according to the figures that surveyed households in 2017, a relatively prosperous year for the American economy.

But the shutdown, which began just before Christmas, took many federal workers by surprise and is lasting longer than most expected. That has left furloughed employees stuck at home, sifting through garages and closets, basements and bookshelves to find possessions and personal treasures to sell.

"You have to take a kind of cold-hearted look at things around you and decide what would be marketable to someone else," said Jay Elhard, on furlough from his job as a media specialist at Acadia National Park in Maine.

Elhard, who has worked for the National Park Service since 2005, started a Facebook group for people to buy items from furloughed federal workers. But so far it's just been him trying to sell things: copies of his graduate thesis from Columbia University about wolves in Yellowstone, a carbon-fibre backpack he took on hiking trips, a painting of Polychrome Overlook in Denali National Park.

US President Donald Trump.Credit:Bloomberg

The painting was a window to his years running the roads there as a park ranger. Now he's hoping it'll sell so he can put the money toward his next mortgage payment.

Guidance from government offices have provided little comfort so far, some workers said. No one in Washington seems to know how long the partial government shutdown will go on, but there's been little reason to believe the end is close.

Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget has provided sparse advice other than encouraging workers to reach out to creditors and mortgage companies before debts become due.

The Coast Guard published a tip sheet this week suggesting employees hold garage sales or sell things online, walk dogs or babysit or "become a mystery shopper" to get by.

Union members and Internal Revenue Service workers rally outside an IRS Service Centre to call for an end to the partial government shutdown.Credit:AP

"Bankruptcy is a last option," the tip sheet read.

"While it may be uncomfortable to deal with the hard facts, it's best to avoid the 'hide your head in the sand' reaction," the document read. "Stay in charge of the situation by getting a clear understanding of what's happening."

The Coast Guard removed the tip sheet from its website late Wednesday morning after The Washington Post inquired about it.

The suggestions do not "reflect the Coast Guard's current efforts to support our workforce during this lapse in appropriations," McBride said. "As such, this guidance has been removed," said Lieutenant Commander Scott McBride, a service spokesman.

Federal employees rally at the Capitol to protest against the impasse between Congress and President Donald Trump over his demand to fund a US-Mexico border wall.Credit:AP

President Donald Trump, when asked about the hardship facing workers, said federal employees "are on my side."

"You take a look at social media, so many of those people saying 'it's very hard for me, it's very hard for my family, but Mr. President you're doing the right thing. Get it done.' They're patriots," he said.

Anna Cory, a librarian in Morrisville, North Carolina, who works as a contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency, is running a "Government shutdown online yard sale" on Facebook, where she's selling rare books from the 1800s. She held the worn leather volumes in her hands to photograph them, splaying the most beautiful pages to show off sheet music and ornate portraits.

"As a librarian, that's what I value, that's what I treasure. It hurts to let this stuff go." Cory said. "I've had a couple friends who've said, "I wish we could buy your things and just give them back to you," which would be fantastic but it's not always feasible."

Two weeks into the shutdown, Cory, 39, got engaged. Right now, she wants to be picking a wedding date and searching for a house where she and her fiancee can start their new life together. All that's on hold now.

Along with selling things on Facebook, she's looking for temporary jobs or even other full-time positions, although it pains her to think of leaving the EPA. This is the second shutdown Cory's endured in her two years there, but last time the EPA's budget allowed it to stay open. When the current one began, she took comfort in co-workers who had been around for the 2013 shutdown and who were confident the whole thing would be short-lived.

"All of us were unprepared for this to go on so long," Cory said.

If the shutdown extends into next week, it'll become the longest continuous closer of the government in US history, topping the 21-day shutdown under President Bill Clinton that extended from December 1995 to January 1996.

Hungry for signs of resolution, many furloughed workers have been glued to their televisions and news feeds, but there's been little to feel optimistic about.

Determined to secure more than $US5 billion in funding for a wall on the U.S. southern border, President Trump has said he's prepared for the shutdown to last "months or years".

At a high-level meeting about the shutdown on Wednesday Trump asked Democratic leaders whether they would support his wall if he reopened the government. They said "no." Trump walked out, later calling the meeting "a total waste of time." Democratic leaders chided him for "throwing another temper tantrum."

For some workers, the endless catfights and political turbulence have eroded any sense of stability they felt working for the federal government. Joseph Simeone, a safety inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration in Virginia, said he was partially drawn to his position because of the job security. Now he feels like the uncertainty is a "constant threat."

"I don't have a lot of faith that this will be resolved, even if they do fund the wall or if the president ends up allowing the funding that has been put forward," Simeone said. "We're probably just going to have to go through this again later. It's starting to make me feel like I have a better shot switching back to the industry."

A few years away from retirement, Simeone, 53, is suddenly applying for unemployment and for part-time work assembling outdoor furniture. In the meantime, he's selling things on Craigslist in a "Shutdown Special": two guitars, an amplifier, a massage table and his 14-year-old television. Not much has sold yet, but it's all he has to offer.

In emails and text messages, Simeone checks in with his co-workers who feel adrift in the shutdown.

Some jokingly offered to go build the wall themselves if it'd bring an end to things. Others tried to enjoy having time to slow down and read or work out. At night, Simeone said he struggles to sleep, consumed by worry about what's to come.

"I have $US24 in cash on me, I don't use credit cards and I have $US2.40 left in my bank account," Simeone said. "If we miss this upcoming paycheque, I will be completely broke."